The culprit's intimate friends,
of course, made a point of eating only a portion of their own morsels of
soft, heavy, sour bread (we got two a day, with each _soupe_) and
presenting the culprit with the rest. The common method of getting _pain
sec_ was also a simple one--it was for a man to wave, shout or make other
signs audible or visual to an inhabitant of the women's quarters; and,
for a girl, to be seen at her window by the Directeur at any time during
the morning and afternoon promenades of the men. The punishment for
sending a letter to a girl might possibly be _pain sec_, but was more
often--I pronounce the word even now with a sinking of the heart, though
curiously enough I escaped that for which it stands--_cabinot_.
There were (as already mentioned) a number of _cabinots_, sometimes
referred to as _cachots_ by persons of linguistic propensities. To repeat
myself a little: at least three were situated on the ground floor; and
these were used whenever possible in preference to the one or ones
upstairs, for the reason that they were naturally more damp and chill and
dark and altogether more dismal and unhealthy. Dampness and cold were
considerably increased by the substitution, for a floor, of two or three
planks resting here and there in mud.
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